All Through the Night (37 page)

“I’ve changed my mind about the peaches,” he said in a husky voice, tugging the can away from her. He speared a chunk, plucked it off the end of the fork and examined it, heedless of the syrup dripping voluptuously over his hand. He took a bite and closed his eyes for a long moment as he chewed and swallowed, then opened his eyes with a blissful smile. “Succulent,” he commented softly. “Tender and soft and silky, dripping with sweet juices. Divine perfection in a can.”

She stared, fascinated, as he slid the rest of the peach into his mouth with a growl of pleasure. “I’ve never looked at canned peaches in quite that way,” she admitted.

He laughed softly. “You’ve got to look at things in just the right light before they’ll give up their secrets.” He snagged another piece between his thumb and forefinger, and admired it from all sides. “Under the enchantment of sweet Annie, these peaches are the manna of the gods. Come closer, Annie. Let me show you.”

She gazed at him, flustered and nervous but irresistibly tempted by the burning invitation in his eyes. She leaned forward and opened her mouth to take a bite of the fruit.

other hand gently seized her shoulder, holding her still.

“Wait,” he said in a low, admonishing voice. He leaned closer, surrounding her with his scent: shampoo and soap, crisp denim, damp leather. “First you have to concentrate. Yield to the enchantment. Let it lead you. There’s no hurry.”

Annie blinked, and gazed at the chunk of peach. She stared at his long fingers, wet and gleaming with sticky syrup, and she squirmed restlessly, her breath jerking in and out of her lungs. “OK, I’m concentrating,” she said testily. “Now what?”

“Look at how beautiful it is,” he suggested in a whisper, his warm fragrant breath tickling her ear. “How golden, and full of light. How juicy and plump. It’s ready to give itself to you, to be absorbed into your body, to become part of you forever. Let your mouth get ready. Salivate. Savor the moment. Wallow in the sweet agony of anticipation.”

The peach slid out of focus and became a shining golden glow in the foreground. His lean, dark face shifted into focus behind it, his eyes fixed intently on hers. “OK, I think I’m there,” she told him, her voice low and shaky. “I’m pretty sure that I’ve, ah, yielded to the enchantment of the peach.”

His teeth flashed in a swift, brilliant smile. “Good,” he murmured. “Now open your mouth and close your eyes.”

She closed her eyes and opened her mouth obediently, making a tiny gasping noise as the intensely sweet wedge of syrupy fruit nudged itself between her lips. She took a bite.

He was right. It was delicious, but she wasn’t the one who had cast the spell that made it so. That was all Jacob’s doing. The sweetness of the fruit shimmered on her tongue like trapped sunshine, and her body was hot, pulsing, dazzled. She opened her eyes, her defenses swept away, and stared into the endless depths of his black eyes.

Jacob’s wild, potent magic tugged at her, opening up wild, verdant places deep inside her mind; places she’d never shared with anyone. A fey, fearless part of her took over, and she leaned forward, taking his wrist in her hand. She drew it toward her lips and took the last morsel of peach gently into her mouth, licking the peach syrup off his thumb and forefinger with delicate little flicks of her tongue. She drew his fingertip into her mouth and swirled her tongue around it.

His eyes dilated, and his breath shuddered through his chest, harsh and audible. His face was suddenly tense, almost grim, the teasing gleam in his eyes gone and the depth of his hunger unmasked.

Annie let go of his hand and shrank back, startled at her own boldness. Jacob looked down at his fingers as if they were not his own. “Does this mean that I can stay with you tonight?” he asked hoarsely.

A final spasm of doubt clutched her, warring with the ache of longing that he’d awakened, and making her uncertain if she could really live up to her silent promise of unbridled sensuality. And it was insane to make herself so vulnerable, all alone in the dark as she was. But if he’d wanted to hurt her or force her, he could have done so ten times over by now. And she’d been alone in the dark for a long time now, if she counted these last, bad months with Philip. What harm could there be in a lighthearted tryst?

“I’ve never fallen into bed with a stranger before,” she whispered.

Jacob picked up a stick and stirred the coals with it, biding his time. “We’re not strangers. I’ve been courting you for days.”

She opened her mouth, and was utterly surprised when the simple, naked truth popped out. “I’m running away from my ex-boyfriend,” she blurted. “I’m wrecked, Jacob. You’re a really cute guy, and it’s nothing personal, but I just got out of a bad situation, and chances are I’d disappoint you anyway.”

He gave her a thoughtful frown. “I doubt that very much.

Besides, just because your ex-boyfriend is a jerk, is that any reason to deny yourself great sex with a guy who asks nothing more of you but to worship at the shrine of your incredible beauty?“

That cracked her up. She forced herself to choke the giggles down when they threatened to melt into tears. “Mr. Modesty. What makes you so sure it would be great sex?”

A soft, amused smile crinkled up the lines around his eyes. “Listen to your heart, Annie.”

The gentle words moved her. Something softened and shifted deep inside her chest, fanning slowly open like a crimson flower.

The fire crackled and popped, the coals glowed with shifting shades of red, like pulsing hearts. Jacob pushed back a lock of hair that was clinging to her cheek. “Let me please you tonight, Annie.”

She gave a quick, jerky nod.

“Is that a yes?” His voice was satiny soft. “Let me hear you say it, so I can be sure.”

A delicious shiver racked her, though she was far from cold. “Yes,” she whispered.

Chapter Two

Contents
-
Prev
|
Next

Jacob stirred the embers with his stick, shooting for an air of idle nonchalance, but the huge, goofy smile spreading across his face probably ruined the effect. The stick smoldered red-hot at the tip—not unlike the current state of his cock. Just in case there was a God, he sent up a prayer begging for enough self-control to not screw this up.

Annie folded her legs up against her chest and hugged them. “So?” she asked belligerently. “What are you going to do now?”

He studied the rigid set of her spine, the tremor in her hands. She was scared to death. The realization sent a rush of tenderness through him. “Nothing sudden,” he said gently. “Nothing scary. Nothing rough.”

She twisted her hands together. “Would you, um, like a toasted marshmallow?” Her voice was shaking.

Food was the last thing on his mind, but he smiled gently into her wide, anxious eyes. “Sure.”

Annie leaped up and rummaged through a cardboard box on the picnic table, her brisk activity confirming the fact that she was not wearing a bra. Her high breasts jiggled and bounced, and his groin throbbed almost painfully at the thought of touching them, suckling them. He carved points onto the ends of two green sticks with his penknife and handed them to her as she settled down onto the ground again, a full two feet away from him. He grinned wickedly and sidled closer. Grinned and sidled again, and again, until she was giggling like a little girl at his foolishness.

She jabbed a marshmallow with a stick and handed it to him. “There you go. Enjoy my lavish hospitality.”

He murmured his thanks, scooting the last few inches until his leg was touching hers. She didn’t move away this time. She shot him a shy, sidelong look as they held their marshmallows over the coals.

“So, Jacob,” she said with a businesslike air. “Where are you from?”

He turned his marshmallow, admiring the puffy golden underside. “Atlanta,” he replied.

“And what brings you here?”

“You,” he said simply.

“Oh, come on.”

“It’s true,” he insisted. “I have no idea where I am. I’ve just been blindly following you. Like a lemming.”

“Don’t you have a life back in Atlanta?” she demanded. “What kind of person can just up and follow a stranger to hell and gone?”

He hesitated. The tedious tale of finally breaking off his tepid long-distance affair with Bridget, his decision to take a month’s leave of absence from his architecture firm, none of it belonged in this magic circle of firelight. It was so workaday, so rational, so boring. Looking into Annie’s fey, smoky eyes, he was outside the confines of normal life, in a fantasy world where anything could happen. He thought of making up a new past for himself, but that didn’t feel right either. He was abruptly excused from replying by grace of the fact that Annie’s marshmallow burst into flames. She blew it out and pried the blackened marshmallow off the stick with a sigh.

“They’re good that way,” he said in a comforting tone. “I used to set them on fire on purpose when I was a kid.”

“I like them toasty and golden, not charred,” she confessed.

“Take mine,” he said, offering it to her gallantly.

She looked at the perfectly browned marshmallow on the end of his stick, and smiled like a naughty little girl as she took it. She bit into it, and foaming white goo poured out like sweet lava. The sight of her little pink tongue eagerly lapping at it made his whole body tighten with excitement. He stuck the blackened marshmallow into his mouth and chewed it without tasting it.

The marshmallows were a stroke of luck, though, because the glistening, sugary strand clinging to her enticingly plump lower lip gave him just the hook he needed to get things started. He leaned over and delicately licked it off, drinking in her little gasp of surprise. His stick fell into the fire as he wound his hand into her damp, silky hair. Her trembling lips opened and he slid his tongue inside. She was delicious; a fresh, unique flavor, with sweet overtones of peaches and burnt sugar. Sexual hunger slammed through him, threatening his self-control. Every luscious detail of her got to him, tossing him off balance, and he needed balance. Something told him that the first time with the skittish, beautiful Annie needed to be just right. And he was shaking with raw lust, in no condition to give a peak sexual performance.

Annie’s big gray eyes were wide with wonder. “You’re as good at kissing as you are at sweet talk,” she said, touching her flushed lower lip delicately with her fingertip. “It gives you an unfair advantage.”

“The advantage, sweet Annie, is all yours,” he said, kissing her nose. “The kisses, the sweet talk, it’s all for your pleasure and delight.”

She giggled, delighted. “Oh, you think you’re so slick.”

He took advantage of the lightness of the moment to grab her waist and lift her smoothly onto his lap. “Aren’t I?”

She wiggled away from him, startled, but he held on tight, making gentle shushing sounds. “Relax,” he soothed. “I just want to hold you.”

She stopped struggling, though a tremor of nervous laughter shook her. “Yeah, right,” she murmured. “I’ve heard that one before.”

“I just bet you have,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “You’re so pretty, Annie. It’s been driving me crazy. Eight hundred miles of pure torture.”

She gave him a small, shy smile. “Oh, give me a break.”

She was so soft, shifting her light, whispery weight back and forth across his instantaneous hard-on. A little too thin, he thought, running his hand over her back. She needed feeding up. Steak and potatoes, eggs and grits. He would see to it at the first opportunity.

He embraced her slender shoulders and pressed little, nuzzling kisses onto the velvety skin that emerged like a lily from the frayed neckline of her T-shirt. He wanted to taste every inch of that rose-tinted softness, the tender spot behind her ears, under her jaw, the shadowy hollow at the base of her throat, everything. She returned his kiss with a timid eagerness, and he drank in her sweetness, forcing himself to disregard the clawing need in his lower body. The trusting way she opened to him was inflaming him to a dangerous pitch. He slowed down, breathed deep. He wanted to give her a timeless, forever sort of kiss, slow and lazy. A kiss that coiled and uncoiled endlessly in the firelight’s writhing shadows, no memory of when it began, no desire for it to ever end.

He rearranged Annie’s quivering legs until she straddled him, her soft mound pressed against the hard bulge at the front of his crotch. He cupped her breasts with a sigh of pleasure. They were so soft and full, the hard little nipples tickling his palms. Her hands flew up and clutched at his, and he seized one of them and brought it to his lips, covering her knuckles with hot, ardent kisses. Her faded denim jacket smelled sharply of wood smoke in contrast to the perfumed sweetness of her hair. He wanted her naked so badly it frightened him.

A look of awe and discovery dawned in her heavy-lidded eyes as he gripped her hips and pressed his aching arousal against her. He urged her silently, with his hands, with his mouth, to yield to his pulsing rhythm. They floated together, his senses wide open, in a dreamy, timeless state in which he knew instinctively just how hard he had to press himself against her as his tongue plunged into her mouth, knew just how he needed to trace little designs on the palms of his hands with her nipples. He knew exactly what was necessary to prepare her, slowly and skillfully, for the demands he would make of her later, in her tent. When she was naked and completely open to him.